Thread by @QuinnyPig

In honor of @colmmacc being elevated to VP, a thread on my experiences with him. Somewhere a bunch of @awscloud people just flinched and didn't know why.

https://twitter.com/colmmacc/status/1366430576396308481

First, VP / Distinguished Engineer is the top of the IC track at AWS. There's no higher job level; in all of Amazon there are less than 2 dozen the last time I counted. It is seriously No Joke.

I've encountered Colm on a few different customer issues, to the point where I started to grow suspicious. "Does AWS know that I'm involved here, and they're bringing him in because they know I respect him mightily?"

Of course not; AWS doesn't communicate internally that well.

Instead, he was being tagged in because these were ridiculous problems that on their face made no sense--and he was one of the people who's implicitly trusted to figure out what's going on. He always did, but that's not the most impressive thing I've ever seen.

No; the time that @colmmacc seared himself into my mind as The Best of AWS was when I sat there and watched a unicorn client say to his face that the @awscloud engineers weren't very good, because if they were they'd work at the unicorn instead.

"And that's when the client got punched in the face" is how you'd expect that story to end, but Colm just smiled, took it on the chin, and kept diagnosing the issue like a professional.

SURPRISE it was the client's fault. But the memory stuck.

When it comes to the technical things he does, saying that Colm is better at it than I am is like comparing a baseball Hall of Famer to a Little League player whose most valuable contribution is keeping the bench warm.

But never once has he made me feel that way.

Engineers are easy to find. Great engineers are harder to find. Great engineers with an uncrackable veneer of professionalism are damned near impossible.

@colmmacc is all of that and more: he's someone that lifts up every single person he encounters, whether he knows it or not.

Usually I reference the "Hire and Develop the Best" leadership principle with a mocking tone. In Colm's case, it's very real. Both in terms of his elevation, and his ability to uplift entire organizations just by spending time around them.

So congratulations to @colmmacc. You're a shining example to not just AWS, but the industry as a whole--and beyond.

Thanks for being you.